During the Second World War, tens of thousands of men and women joined partisan forces that operated primarily in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Whether they operated alone, teamed with family members, or belonged to secular nationalist units, partisan fighters lived a precarious and dangerous existence.

Many partisans based themselves in the forested regions of Eastern Europe, surviving on captured and foraged food. The need to avoid detection prevented them from building permanent structures. They sheltered in dugouts or slept under the cover of branches and leaves. The long winter nights were especially brutal, for fires were a luxury that clandestine partisan fighters could not afford.

Partisan life differed for Jews and gentiles. Whereas gentile partisans could vanish from the scene by seeking shelter from local residents, very few Eastern Europeans willingly sheltered and fed Jewish partisans. Having escaped life in a ghetto to become a partisan, Jews had no neutral area where they could live unmolested by the Nazi authorities. Jewish partisans were hunted by the Nazis and often hated by the local inhabitants.
Photo: Jerzy Tomaszewski / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive